Israeli's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich, who is flanked by Naftali Bennett to her right and Yair Lapid to her left.Photo Credit: Nati Shohat/FLASH90

Coalition negotiations have just become a lot more complicated. After it appeared that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to bring the Jewish Home into his new coalition, following the news about the political alliance agreement between Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, yesterday the Bennett folks were telling the press that the Likud negotiating team is only using them to “bring down the price” of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, and in reality they have no intention of including Jewish Home in a Likud-led government.

Originally, Likud sources involved in the negotiations claimed that they intended to present Bennett with “an offer he can’t refuse,” and bring him in as the first partner to join the coalition. However, on Wednesday, a senior Jewish Home MK told Maariv: “I don’t know of any tempting offers and right now there is no preferential treatment for us. I haven’t heard any concrete offer from the Likud, certainly not regarding government posts. For now, we don’t even have an understanding, and everyone in the talks is just talking about whatever they please.”

The source added that on the issue of equal burden (meaning Haredim serving in the IDF) there isn’t even a discussion about the outline of a compromise. “Nothing is happening right now, just do a lot of empty talk with nothing concrete on the table.”

Others inside the Jewish Home party sound even more pessimistic, arguing unequivocally that the entire thing has been a Likud exercise in divide and conquer, designed to soften the demands of other parties. “The talk of making offers to the Jewish Home is only intended to lower Lapid’s price, to return to the good old option of coalition government with the Haredim and the center-left,” they said.

“Before the elections, the Likud focused mainly on attacking the Jewish Home, even when it led to losing seats to Lapid. After the elections, Netanyahu called on everybody except us, and only when he had no choice he made a perfunctory call to Bennett. He did not even have an appointment with Naftali, he only sent Liberman to him. All of a sudden, as soon as Yair Lapid hardens his positions, they want the Jewish Home in the coalition. As soon as Lapid lowers his demands, the Likud will return the Jewish Home to its pre-appointed place – last in line and first to be kicked out to the opposition.”

That last part sounded quite resentful, even borderline whiney. Not the tough talk you’d expect from our home grown heroes. And it only got worse:

” Shas called us a Goyeshe Home,” a source told Zeev Kam of Maariv, referring to the nasty comment from Rav Ovadia Yosef regarding Ayelet Shaked’s proposal to offer state sanctioned marriages to couples who were rejected by the Rabbinate. “Now the Likud is trying to use us as the Shabbes Goy, doing for him the job of lowering the prices of other parties. If they were seriousness about including us, it would have happened already.”

Meanwhile, the Likud-Beitenu negotiating team has been frustrated by slow progress of coalition talks, and criticism of Yesh Atid for its stubbornness regarding solving the equal burden problem. A senior Likud members did his own whining, complaining that Lapid’s offers regarding Haredi service would never pass muster in the Knesset. “Lapid’s proposal, as it stands today, will not pass and is not feasible,” claimed the senior negotiators. “It will not pass either in the Knesset or even in the coalition.”

Those same senior Likudniks added that the main obstacle blocking Lapid’s outline, is his view on the quotas of yeshiva students allowed to continue their learning. “The quota system just does not work,” they explained. “It will only cause a rift in the nation the law would not be obeyed.”

Suddenly, those secular Likudniks started to sound like the old guard Haredim when they stressed: “We take seriously those who tell us the Lapid approach is a decree the public cannot sustain (gzera sh’ein ha’tzibur yachol la’amod bah). We don’t want to cause a rift in the nation. We want to propose a bill that could be implemented.”

Others in the Likud Party said on Wednesday that while they do want to bring about a substantial change through equal burden legislation, they want to do it without creating a rift. “Lapid’s outline is too extreme,” they said.

About the Author:Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and
two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.

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